Stef's Blog - a native London Southlander and unrepentant 'Conspiraloon™' who doesn't trust anyone, not even himself. Sometimes I take pictures. I also enjoy swearing immensely and think much faster than I can type, so each post comes guaranteed to include at last one confusing typo. OK?

Friday, August 27, 2010

Ah, the Good Old days...

Anyone for a spot of purification?

Back in the golden days of no-nonsense justice, the process of identifying evil doers was sped up considerably by deciding that they were guilty before any inquiry actually began

The potentially tedious, long-winded and utterly pointless process of having to hear a case for the defence was often done away with thanks to the brilliant innovation of offering the pre-judged a less agonising form of execution if they confessed

Costs were kept to a minimum and impressively high conviction rates were achieved

Re-offending rates were low

Times moved on and things have changed

A bit-

Those of us who are dissatisfied with and can point to gaps in the Official 7/7 Narrative, and who think that this is more important than the X-Factor or the new football season because of the societal changes that have been justfied by 7/7, should have raised an eyebrow at today's news that...

...which basically boils down to the High Court saying that this woman would be granted legal aid only if she is willing and able to confirm her husband's guilt

If she is unable to provide such evidence or, perish the thought, she's not 100% sure of her husband's guilt she can fuck right off

Back to the golden days of no-nonsense justice it is then

And I appreciate that I'm in the tiniest of minorities thinking like this but I guess that part of my brain which thinks that sticking to moral principles is really, really easy and involves no tough decisions must be damaged beyond repair

18 comments:

Hasina Patel is being incredibly brave in challenging the original decision by Jack Straw to refuse her and the family of Hasib Hussain legal aid. The last 5 years must have been hell for her, not only has her husband been utterly vilified, but she was also held in the appalling conditions of Paddington Green for a week, 18 months after the events of 7/7. As a mother, she also has the heavy burden of raising a child who will undoubtedly carry the 'sins of the father'.

Her courage is immense and she should be supported and applauded for challenging the system. If I had the dosh I'd pay for her legal team myself.

J7 wrote to Jack Straw after the initial decision to refuse legal aid and were told:

Legal aid for representation is not usually available for inquests because an inquest is a fact-finding process to determine who the deceased was and when, where and how he or she came by their death. However, under section 6(8)(b) of the Access to Justice Act 1999, funding may be provided for inquests, through an application for exceptional funding. The published exceptional funding criteria are that there is a significant wider public interest in funding the case, or that representation for the family of the deceased is necessary to enable the coroner to carry out an effective investigation into the death, as required by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Ministry of Justice received two applications from relatives of the “alleged perpetrators” of the 7th July bombings, for representation at the inquests into their deaths. Ministers refused these applications because they did not consider that the published exceptional funding criteria had been met.

What could be of greater public interest than knowing the truth of what actually happened on July 7th 2005?

If Hasina Patel happened to be rich enough to pay for her own legal representation would she be allowed to have legal representation to the Inquests?

"16 MR ADAMS: My name is Adams, my son, James, was killed at17 Kings Cross tube.18 For more than four and a half years, the whole world19 has known that four sick and evil men killed 52 lovely,20 innocent people, and yet now lawyers are talking and21 writing about "apparent bombers". Your inquest is not22 going to be about 52 "apparent" deaths. It's going to23 be 52 real deaths caused by four real bombers.24 I find it very upsetting and insulting and25 unacceptable to use the word "apparent". If there's

60

1 some way round this, if you can use their surnames, but2 not "apparent bombers", please.3 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: I understand, Mr Adams.4 MR ADAMS: I further ask, has this change come about because5 the legal representatives of the four bombers have6 approached you and your staff concerning this?7 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: No, I have noted your concern and we8 shall bear it very much in mind in future. Thank you."

Still crawling through the site but I haven't found Lady Justice Hallett's explanation for allowing the use of an inaccurate and prejudicial turn of phrase.

Probably now is a good time to remember that what is being dealt with is a system of 'law', not a system of 'justice'.

The notion of 'justice' is the almost transparent velvet glove that contains the iron fist of 'law' enforcement.

And we all know which relatively tiny groupuscules of people make the law, which groupings of people are charged with enforcing those laws, and how much control or influence the other 62 million of us have over either of those groups.

what does still surprises me is the overall passivity of the general population, its dumbed down sense of fatality and acceptance of a narrow range of discourse on what were once considered important issues

on the specific point of the treatment of Hasina Patel and the pre-judged 7/7 inquest, try having a look around even the most alternative alternative websites and blogs and see if you can find anyone swimming against the estasblishment flow on this one

On first encountering the use of the term "apparent bombers", it seemed quite interesting, and perhaps even 'clever'.

The word "apparent" is deliberately ambiguous in a way that "alleged" isn't; the latter operating on the basis of the (once cherished) presumption of innocence, while the former allows for both innocence and guilt.

I suspect there would have been an even greater uproar if the term "alleged" had been used instead of "apparent".

An inquest is not meant to pre-judge outcomes, yet in this instance the inquest appears to be proceeding almost as if the guilt of the accused is a foregone conclusion.

Trying not to prejudge anything, and seeing the usage of the terminology "apparent bombers" from the outset, and some of Lady Justice Hallett's actions and comments, as potentially conducive to something vaguely useful occurring as part of the inquest process.

That's not to say anything useful will arise, just that there's a very small chance that it might.

"In August 2007 the Firm published the results of a three year investigation which concluded that there is sufficient material evidence and testimony to indicate that the Boeing 747 which crashed on Lockerbie may have been the victim of a mid-air accident, caused by the unintended detonation of munitions components illegally carried on the plane."

"No public inquiry into the event has been convened, and no new criminal investigation has been initiated."....

I think that the identity of the alleged bombers should be investigated at the inquest.

A member of the public submitted a Freedom of Information request (ref FS50097905) to the Government Cabinet Office on July 18 2005. The FOI request was denied, with an eventual final response on 9 March 2009, with the answer that the information should not be disclosed.

The evidence upon which the identities of the alleged 7/7 bombers should surely be examined by the coroners inquest?

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